A New Kind of Town Hall.

Yesterday’s town hall with the new Interim President and Interim Chief Administrative Officer proved remarkably free of the dishonesty and cynicism that has marked appearances by Chicago State’s leadership since 2009. In fact, the forum’s tone featured high hopes and a number of actual ideas (imagine, that!) for extricating ourselves from our current predicament. To be sure, not everything will work out as planned, but I came away with the sense that we’ve at long last started down a new road. Kudos to Dr. Lindsey and Mr. Vallas for their plain speaking.

Kudos, also, to the several CSU staff and faculty who asked sharp questions and made comments that expressed their disaffection with the events of the past seven years. We heard about the devastating results of the mass layoffs of 2016, the advising fiasco that Dr. Lindsey recently ended, the always looming specter of the ridiculous and unnecessary West Side campus, the complete inadequacy, even illiteracy, of the university’s web site and its continual promotion of our failed former president, the failure of high-salaried administrators to create any effective policy for recruiting students, the multiple failures in public relations that have enabled the narrative that CSU is closing to remain viable, the waste of public fund on salaries for people who apparently do nothing, and who, by their failure to do their jobs, have contributed to the university’s failure writ large. I’m sure I missed a couple of things, but that’s my recollection of the topics covered at the meeting.

As Dr. Lindsey pointed out, we all have a responsibility to our students. They are entitled to the best educational experience we can provide. After the doom and gloom of the past seven years, the staff and faculty have much hard work ahead to repair the damage and make this school what it should be. I agree with Dr. Lindsey that we all must work together to make the school’s possibilities, realities. However, I must point out that our administration also has responsibilities to its faculty and staff. Most important, the personnel changes everyone acknowledges are necessary must occur, and soon.